"Below our feet and behind our backs".. (2) Our earth, the wreckers and the wrecked.

   

I read that it can take a thousand years to build up three centimetres of topsoil. Currently we are losing the area of 30 football pitches of fertile soil every minute.  One third of the world's arable soil is degraded and at least a quarter of that severely degraded.  The good news is that organic farming can rescue around 720 million hectares of lightly degraded soil. This isn't a trivial matter; in the UK the Soil Association says that the countryside only has 100 harvests left in it.  A global estimate given in around 2014 was that in 60 years' time all the world's topsoil could be gone if current rates of soil degradation continued. Spelling it out, that means no more food grown in the ground.
So what is going wrong?  Well, have a look at these figures from an article written in 2009 by Grain.org and see what you think. "For each kg of nitrogen applied, 226kg of maize were obtained in 1961" (a time when global industrial farming was starting), "but only 76 kg in 2006." And it wasn't just maize. The figures were down from 217kg for rice to 66 kg. They had fallen from 131kg to 36kg for soya and from 126kg to 45kg for wheat.
Apparently, this has been known for years and to quote Grain again. "It is not uncommon to hear organic farmers say that they turned organic because  their yields collapsed after years of heavy industrial fertiliser use". 
From my searches, I discovered that synthetic nitrogen fertilisers can cause huge problems. Firstly, if applied liberally they can diminish the role of natural nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil. Other soil microbes, faced with a feast of fast food, are stimulated to multiply, eat all the soil organic matter they can, then, when supplies run out, they die. There is also an imbalance of minerals which affects plant growth. Secondly, the fertilisers can acidify the soil and this can kill off a lot of bacteria.  Thirdly, even if they are slow release, they still aren't doing anything for the topsoil, they aren't providing anything to help its structure or maintain it. That lovely air-spaced, microbe-laced soil organic matter slowly disappears. Fourthly, there's probably a lot of stuff I don't know yet.
What happens then?  The soil becomes compacted. It can't hold as much water. Roots grow shorter and absorb less nutrients. Surface layers of soil erode and water and fertiliser are leached away, affecting more soil and waterways and aquifers.
 A study in 2015 linked nitrates with uranium levels which were way above the EPA guidelines, from water samples in two aquifers in the Midwest of the USA and California.  The naturally occurring uranium in the rocks is said to be mobilised by excess nitrates. It's unlikely that they are the only aquifers where this is happening in the world. A number of illnesses, including blue baby syndrome, are cited as being caused by excess nitrate in drinking water.

The link between the fertiliser industry and fracking

What I hadn't realised was the connection between the fertiliser industry and fracking. According to a report by Grain in 2015, it takes a lot of energy to make fertilisers.  In fact, the fertiliser industry is responsible for consuming over one to two percent of annual world energy. (Ammonia, NH3, is the basis for artificial nitrogen fertilisers. The inert nitrogen is taken from the air and the hydrogen, mostly from natural gas.)  It is the fertiliser companies who, according to the report, were using most of the natural gas produced by the fracking boom in the USA.  Incidentally, apparently, natural gas from fracked wells leak 40% to 60% more methane than conventional wells and methane is a greenhouse gas which is 25 times stronger than CO2.
That, however, is nothing compared to the N2O released once the fertiliser reaches the land. It is estimated that around 3 to 5% of global greenhouse gases are from N2O released by nitrogen fertilisers. This figure might even be too low, because farmers have to use more and more fertiliser every year just to try to keep yields the same and the rate of N2O emissions increases exponentially with the application of more fertiliser.
Stating the obvious, the more artificial nitrogen fertiliser they use, the more hydrogen is needed to manufacture ammonia and the more hydrogen is bought from the fracking companies.
Can organic farming really take out the problem? Yes, absolutely and it's been proved and is being proved...and I'm coming to it, honest, but there are other problems with growing food safely that can't be dealt with so easily. In fact it will take years and years...and years.

Long-term pollution

 Can you imagine what over 9 million black bags of nuclear waste, each of one cubic metre, and mostly containing topsoil, look like when they are piled up in banks? That's the official September 2015 figure from the Fukushima Prefecture and the Environment Ministry....and it's still rising. The Ministry is quoted this year as estimating that it had bagged 3.5 billion gallons of soil and planned to collect much more. The trouble is, that it's an ongoing problem. They clean up an area then the rain washes more radiation down from the mountains.
 In China, huge industrial expansion has come at environmental cost to the countryside and around one fifth of their farmland is, reportedly, severely polluted. The government is introducing an ambitious "soil pollution prevention action plan." People in China are being asked to report polluted waterways. Greenpeace, East Asia, has also started their own map of China's hazardous chemical facilities.
Meanwhile, the number of rivers in China has been reported to have halved, waterways and soil have become heavily polluted with chemicals such as Cadmium, Caesium, Chromium, Mercury and Lead, and there is a published list of "Cancer Villages".
Change can't come quickly enough for the little village of Liuchong, revisited by a journalist in 2016. He found that it was towered over by a 200 foot high hill of the grey ash of phosphogypsum, still being dumped daily by a local factory producing fertiliser. Phosphogypsum is radioactive and according to the EPA, contains chemicals like uranium, radium and arsenic....all cancer causing.
A doctor working in the village said that thirty of three hundred villagers living near the factory had already died from cancer and five more were likely to die soon.  He spoke anonymously about the owner of the factory.  “He has told us that if we say anything bad about his company, he’ll have us killed."  He said that their only hope was that journalists got the word out.
China needs to feed its people.  They are importing food. China has been buying swathes of agricultural land or entering food production contract in other countries.

Land grab

They certainly aren't the only country to have soil problems or to be buying up, leasing or entering land contracts in other nations. Some countries in Africa, South America and South East Asia, have been especially badly affected, but the problem is widespread. People who have farmed their land for generations can be suddenly driven off, beaten, even killed. The foreign companies can do a deal with intermediaries or governments and wait until the clearances have happened... and they do. It's not just companies from different countries or their own opportunist governments who are land grabbing. As might be expected, corporations are involved for profit and surprisingly, so are some pension funds.  Your teacher's pension might come off the bruised back of any displaced farmer in the third world. You may say, "I know that they don't do that." Are you sure? Do you know that the assurances they give you are real? Do you know what is happening in the fields and pastures of once fertile areas of the world?  Do you know how much scarce water is being guaranteed for these projects?
We are blitzed with information about how the world population will rise and how we need to feed them.  Who are these hungry people? Apparently, they are mostly the very neighbours of the small farmers who are being displaced.  What are some of the crops now being grown on their land by the new owners or leaseholders?  Cut flowers and roses for the European market, (I am not joking) and especially flex crops such as palm oil, sugar cane, cassava and corn.What are they mainly grown for? Export.
Even where farmers keep their land, it can now be illegal for them to sell their own seeds. They may be pressured into buying patented seeds annually.  Seed patenting laws are being resisted in countries around the world.
There are acres and acres of genetically modified mono-crops.  In the southern cone of Latin America, there are over 54 million hectares of G.M. soy, according to Grain.org.  Millions of peasants were displaced to achieve this, and thousands had to abandon producing local food, unable to co-exist with G.M.soy. Hundreds of peasants were criminalised, persecuted and murdered trying to defend their land. 
Grain.org has produced a downloadable poster giving 20 reasons for opposing the G.M. soy crop. Two of them are that the land is being depleted and destroyed with an unprecedented loss of nutrients and that every study to date has found GM soy varieties to be less productive than conventional varieties.

 Link to part three 
The answer: small organic farms and seed sovereignty.
                                                  

Petitions.

For Ethiopia: Defend the Oppressed Peoples in Ethiopia https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Defend_Ethiopian_peasants/?pv=105
Save Nallamala from Uranium Mining:
https://ecoterra.info/index.php/en/1043-save-nallamala-from-uranium-mining  

Sources and Resources
Titles:  Helpful organisations.  The case for organic farming. History. Sources of material in order.

 Helpful organisations:
Grain.org  https://www.grain.org/
HIVOS https://www.hivos.org/focal-area/open-source-seed-systems
IFOAM (International  Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.) http://www.ifoam.bio/en
IFOAM EU http://www.ifoam-eu.org/
Navdanya (Indian based movement) http://www.navdanya.org/home
OCA,The Organic Consumers Association (USA but international reach). https://www.organicconsumers.org/
Open Source Seed Initiative OSSI (USA but international reach) http://osseeds.org/
Open Source Seeds (Germany based) http://www.opensourceseeds.org/en  
Regeneration International http://regenerationinternational.org/
Save Our Soils www.saveoursoils.com
Seed matters  (USA)  http://seedmatters.org/
Seed savers exchange http://www.seedsavers.org/
Soil Association (UK) https://www.soilassociation.org/
SAT (Tanzania) http://kilimo.org/WordPress/
The Carbon Underground https://thecarbonunderground.org/  
The Oakland Institute https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/
The Rodale Institute   http://rodaleinstitute.org/ 
The case for organic farming:
 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/
http://rodaleinstitute.org/reversing-climate-change-achievable-by-farming-organically/
http://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/
http://e360.yale.edu/features/soil_as_carbon_storehouse_new_weapon_in_climate_fight
http://saveoursoils.com/en/soilution/the-issue.html
http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/ 
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/organic-and-sustainable-farmers-can-feed-world
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/6-reasons-organics-can-fe_b_1399380.html https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/organic-can-feed-the-world/249348/ 
http://www.panna.org/food-democracy/feeding-world
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/735-earth-matters-tackling-the-climate-crisis-from-the-ground-up
Three UN items below:
http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/press_releases/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf 
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56311#.WW0hD7pFwcT
http://www.uspirg.org/news/usp/new-un-report-we-can-feed-world-without-using-pesticides
https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/save-our-soils/
https://www.soilassociation.org/media/4672/7-ways-to-save-our-soils-2016.pdf 
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland
http://12.000.scripts.mit.edu/mission2014/solutions/organic-industrial-agriculture 
http://ecofarmingdaily.com/organic-agriculture-can-feed-world/
http://www.panna.org/food-democracy/feeding-world 
http://www.soilsforlife.org.au/index.html (Australia)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/13/food-farming-and-climate-change-its-bigger-everything-else
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/679-saying-no-to-chemical-farming-in-india 
http://www.navdanya.org/site/2017-03-29-08-02-10/industrial-vs-living-agriculture
http://www.theecologist.org/Interviews/2985620/agroecology_leading_the_fight_against_indias_green_revolution.html
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-its-time-to-stop-punishing-our-soils-with-fertilizers-and-chemicals  
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/synthetic-nitrogen-fertilizer-zmgz16fmzkin?pageid=1#PageContent1 

Reference below:  
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.5b00174
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5490-tanzania-fighting-for-seeds-and-soil Video: Please watch if you can.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWKfg0d63SA Video: Please watch if you can.
http://reliefweb.int/report/world/report-special-rapporteur-right-food-ahrc3448          
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/scientists-discover-another-cause-bee-deaths-and-its-really-bad-news.html
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/monsantos-sealed-documents-reveal-truth-behind-roundups-toxicological-dangers
History:
http://scienceheathen.com/2015/01/05/desertification-effects-causes-examples-top-10-list/ http://mycorrhizae.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Soil-Life-and-Carbon-PDF.pdf
Some sources of material in approximate order:
http://saveourwoods.co.uk/articles/expert-articles/soils-biodiversity-by-dr-james-merryweather/
http://mycorrhizas.info/vam.html 
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/sustainable-farming/benefits-of-earthworms-zm0z16amzbre
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/fossilised-remains-of-oldest-form-of-land-dwelling-life-ever-discovered-found-on-remote-scottish-a6908756.html
http://www.nofamass.org/sites/default/files/2015_White_Paper_web.pdf
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mycorrhizae_and_plant_communication.php 
http://www.carbon-negative.us/docs/Glomalin-HiddenSoilCarbon.pdf 
https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/SAG-10
http://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/
http://www.sicirec.org/definitions/carbon-capture
http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/
http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A2835533
http://plato.acadiau.ca/isme/Symposium25/xavier.PDF 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259221729_The_impact_of_pesticide_on_arbuscular_mycorrhizal_and_nitrogen_fixing_symbioses_in_legumes
https://www.soilassociation.org/media/7202/glyphosate-and-soil-health-full-report.pdf 
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/glyphosatePoisonsCrops.php
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272828938_Arbuscular_Mycorrhizae_and_Grassland_Ecosystems   
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0027381
http://mycorrhizae.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Soil-Life-and-Carbon-PDF.pdf
http://scienceheathen.com/2015/01/05/desertification-effects-causes-examples-top-10-list/ https://www.grain.org/article/entries/735-earth-matters-tackling-the-climate-crisis-from-the-ground-up    2009 GRAIN.org article 
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/organic-and-sustainable-farmers-can-feed-world
http://www.panna.org/food-democracy/feeding-world 
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/agroecology-report-from-the-roots-up-web-version.pdf
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21306&LangID=E
http://saveoursoils.com/soilution/the-issue.html
https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/save-our-soils/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/synthetic-nitrogen-fertilizer-zmgz16fmzkin?pageid=1#PageContent1/
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.5b00174
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237993599_Nitrous_Oxide_Emission_from_Crop_Fields_and_Its_Role_in_Atmospheric_Radiative_Forcing
http://grist.org/article/2009-11-11-the-dark-side-of-nitrogen/
https://hubpages.com/politics/Artificial-Nitrogen-Dangers-Of-Mankind-Playing-God
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/nitratenitrite2ndadd.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7489769
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1638204/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226489981_The_Blue_Baby_Syndrome
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5270-the-exxons-of-agriculture  2015 GRAIN Fertiliser report.
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/return-to-the-radiation-zone-fukushima-clean-up-operation-mired-in-fear-and-misinformation-8810158.html
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/22/fukushima-deep-trouble/

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20151210/p2a/00m/0na/020000chttp://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20151210/p2a/00m/0na/020000c

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/news/blog/is-chinas-new-plan-to-tackle-soil-pollution-t/blog/56643/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/22/black-smelly-citizens-clean-chinas-polluted-rivers
http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/news/blog/why-were-mapping-chinas-hazardous-chemicals-f/blog/57555/ 
https://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/almost-28-000-rivers-disappear-in-china-8009
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/chinas_dirty_pollution_secret_the_boom_poisoned_its_soil_and_crops/2782/

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/9028-China-s-tainted-soil-initiative-lac

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/world/asia/china-underground-water-pollution.html?_r=0
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/8892-Changzhou-pollution-scandal-highlights-holes-in-China-s-environmental-enforcement
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_warriors_of_qiugang_a_chinese_village_fights_back/2358/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYGHpyJKK4  (Video Warrors of Qiugang)

http://ejatlas.org/conflict/cancer-village-qiugang-develops-in-anhui-china  

https://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/03/world/life-and-death-inside-chinese-cancer-village (Village of Liuchong)
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1R70M9vbPN104K-YqFlUnK1xUDoY&hl=en_US&ll=30.187076758346265%2C112.28646500000013&z=4
http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/March-April%202010/made-in-china-full.html
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/the-environmental-problem-china-can-no-longer-overlook/
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5736-cambodia-communities-in-protracted-struggle-against-chinese-sugar-companies-land-grab
https://www.channel4.com/news/china-ukraine-farmland-food-security-investment-overseas
https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/china-buys-up-agricultural-land-in-central-france/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/21/rich-countries-are-buying-up-farmland-from-poorer-ones-around-the-world/?utm_term=.e050e54daa7c
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/dangerous-ground/
 http://www.lifegate.com/people/news/land-grabbing-cambodia-richard-rodgers
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5622-grow-ing-disaster-the-fortune-500-goes-farming
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5570-a-high-price-mounting-debt-means-tragedy-for-tens-of-thousands-of-farmers-in-vietnam
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4575-land-grabbing-and-food-sovereignty-in-west-and-central-africa
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/kathambi-kinoti/land-grabs-threat-to-african-women’s-livelihoods
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/mariama-tarawallie/women-in-sierra-leone-resisting-dispossession 
http://www.zukunftsstiftung-entwicklung.de/media/Bilder_ZSE/UEber_Uns_Dateien/Grundlagentexte/Land_grab_article.pdf (in English) 
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/landRush.php
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/27121-brazil-home-of-amazon-rolls-back-environmental-protection
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5760-canadian-pension-funds-grab-farmland-in-brazil
https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-global-land-grab#whatisnew
https://ejatlas.org/conflict/land-grabbing-and-forced-evictions-by-koh-kongs-sugar-industry-cambodia
http://licadhocanada.com/about-cambodia/land-evictions-in-cambodia/
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/world-bank-sides-agribusinesses-against-farmers-indigenous-communities
http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-millionaires-and-billionaires-buying-land-in-africa-2011-6?op=1&IR=T/#uce-rastetter-and-his-various-companies-are-accused-of-breaking-promises-to-hire-locals-1 
 https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5714-green-oil-palm-plantations-are-a-scam-the-case-of-olam
https://www.globalpolicy.org/world-hunger/land-ownership-and-hunger.html
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4576-slideshow-who-s-behind-the-land-grabs
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5575-pension-funds-fuel-land-grabs-in-brazil
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5760-canadian-pension-funds-grab-farmland-in-brazil
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5493-land-grabs-expand-the-frontier-of-industrial-agriculture-says-grain
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-rights-issue
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/27089-world-bank-fuels-land-grabs-in-africa-through-shadowy-financial-sector-investments
http://www.survivalinternational.org/about/swidden
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5693-large-scale-investments-and-climate-conservation-initiatives-destroy-forests-and-people-s-territories
http://www.developmentperspectives.ie/virtual-water-how-much-do-you-use/
https://qz.com/275489/in-ethiopia-foreign-investment-is-a-fancy-word-for-stealing-land/
https://www.gfbv.de/en/information/campaigns/flowers-of-love-flowers-of-sorrow/
http://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outsourcing-Developmnet-Introduction.pdf 
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4516-squeezing-africa-dry-behind-every-land-grab-is-a-water-grab
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5633-tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed-exchange 
http://www.navdanya.org/campaigns/584-bija-swaraj-is-our-birthright (seed sovereignty)
http://www.navdanya.org/site/living-seed/seed-freedom 
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5748-a-grain-of-truth-rcep-and-the-corporate-hijack-of-indian-agriculture
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/new-alliance-food-security-and-nutrition 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWKfg0d63SA From Ghana: Whoever controls seeds controls the food system.  Video: Please watch if you can.
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5490-tanzania-fighting-for-seeds-and-soil Video: Please watch if you can.
 http://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/trade-deals-threaten-peasant-farmers-stewardship-of-seed-biodiversity/
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5722-20-years-of-gm-soy-in-the-southern-cone-of-latin-america-20-reasons-for-a-definitive-ban
http://www.theecologist.org/magazine/features/2988317/farming_with_the_grain_john_letts_and_his_evolutionary_made_for_organic_heritage_seeds.html
http://www.theecologist.org/magazine/features/2988317
http://www.theecologist.org/Interviews/2985620/agroecology_leading_the_fight_against_indias_green_revolution.html
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5633-tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed-exchange  Also about the work of SAT
https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5333-we-are-the-solution-african-women-organise-for-land-and-seed-sovereignty
http://moofafrica.com/about/
http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/farmers-are-saving-bangladesh-s-endangered-soil/ 
http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/agroecology.html 

http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/press_releases/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf
(Eco-farming can double food production in 10 years.)
http://www.srtoxics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pesticides-and-right-to-food.pdf

UN special rapporteurs report. Especially see item 90
https://previa.uclm.es/Actividades/repositorio/pdf/doc_3721_4666.pdf

King Canute, rolling waves and proposed nuclear power plants.

As we waited under the bus shelter, where an unkind wind occasionally blew a swirl of rain directly towards us, we discussed today's situation and past predictions.  It was, after all, the beginning of the new year, and the thoughtful lady with the furled umbrella, reminded me that in the eighties, when computerization came in, we were told that we would all have so much spare time that when the schools closed and the children went home, they would be opened again for adults to study.
"Well that didn't last, did it?" she said. We agreed that people mostly work longer hours and have less free time than they did in a 9-5.30 era.
I remember the media telling us that there was going to be so little work for us to do when computers took the dross out of office work, that a whole new leisure industry was going to have to be born to give us something to do in our spare time, because we were going to have so much of it.
Um.... they didn't quite get that one right.
The thoughtful lady's bus arrived, the bus driver docking the front wheels carefully in the large puddle, so as not to cause a wave when he drove into it. 
I've made a few predictions myself that have gone horribly wrong and I can't blame anyone else for doing the same.  However, we can learn by our mistakes.
The version of The King Canute story that I was taught, was that he was surrounded by courtiers who were vying to flatter him in 11th century style one-upmanship. In order to teach them a lesson, he had his chair placed on the shore as the sea was coming in and forbade the waves to wet him.... Of course the waves still rolled in and of course he still got soaked and hopefully it taught his courtiers what he was demonstrating to them.
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/Canute%20Waves.htm
I know I am not the first one to draw the parallel, but he was a king of England; this was an English sea that washed over him and now the waves are doing the same, but this time the threat is not to one man and his chair, but to an island and even a world, threatened by a technology that cannot be moved or dismantled for decades.
A few days ago, the former prime minister of  Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, who has switched from being pro nuclear to anti nuclear gave an enlightening interview,   http://nuclear-news.net/2014/01/13/japans-ex-prime-minister-koizumi-denounces-the-lies-of-the-nuclear-industry/
Currently, the British government is considering up to 50 new nuclear power plants  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/21/nuclear-plants-energy-plans
Meanwhile, in Fukushima, another coastal nuclear power plant, on a different island, water contaminated with radioactive isotopes such as Strontium 90 continues to be a horrible problem.  Anyone who has ever tried to stop water flowing from somewhere they didn't want it into somewhere they wanted it even less, may have some idea of how difficult it is to stop land water flowing into the sea and sea water flowing back into the land. The land doesn't stop at the sea edge does it?  It's just that the sea water comes up over it... King Canute knew this.
In Britain many coastal and riverside communities are still reeling from the floods. The Guardian  has a witness area for people to add their own photos and this is the link to the one I especially like.. for the words underneath! https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/52a028a8e4b0acc591790cd5/743301
The Environment Agency has a map showing river and sea levels. I was really impressed by it. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/default.aspx
I hope they can keep it going..  There are apparently going to be massive front line cuts in the department. However, one map that made news in 2012 is set in the future. This is the map showing  nuclear power plant sites at risk of flooding in Great Britain in 2080.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/graphic/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-sites-flooding-map 
and http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/07/uk-nuclear-risk-flooding 
As I understand it, usually, people have to wait around 100 years before they can fully decommission a nuclear power plant.
http://enenews.com/nuclear-experts-one-century-before-japan-deals-with-fukushimas-melted-cores-more-likely-whats-left-of-reactors-will-be-left-in-situ-for-100-years-or-more-video 
So will the workers wear radiation proof diving suits or what? 

What happens when a film is about your life?

On November 27th  the travelling Uranium film festival arrives in the USA.  The main festival takes place each year in Rio de Janeiro, when films from all over the world are entered for the festival. It's the only one of its kind, showing films about nuclear power, uranium mining, nuclear weapons and the health effects of radioactivity. You can find out a lot more from their amazing website.
The first films will be shown in Albuquerque NM, followed by screenings in Santa Fe and Window Rock.  Next year films will be shown in Washington D.C. and in New York City in February.
One of the films is 'The River That Harms'.  Just fourteen weeks after the accident at Three Mile Island, which a great many people have heard about, there was another nuclear tragedy, which I for one, did not find out out about for many years.
When I read that ninety million gallons of liquid nuclear waste and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes burst through a broken dam wall at the Church Rock Uranium Mill Facility, contaminating the Puerco River,  and I had never heard about it, I was bemused.
Many of the people affected were from the Navajo Nation. It was the river they lived by. It was the land that their animals grazed and the water that they drank, and the pools that their children played in....
Now we have films about children who don't play outside in Japan and children whose lives were affected by a poisoned river in the USA. But did their parents ever think it would happen to them, or that a film would be made about them? If the films weren't made, would you know about them?
The uranium that powered the plants in Fukushima, apparently, came from mines in Australia, but I also read of protests and long protest marches by Aboriginal people along with international protesters against the mining of uranium  http://indymedia.org.au/2013/05/10/wgar-news-walkatjurra-walkabout-stepping-out-against-uranium-mining-wanfa-anawa
 Our children, your children, have the right to be in happy films in a bright future.  It's up to us to see that this happens.

Hot water

On April 1st, Mochizuki wrote in the Fukushima Diary that the sea water off shore Fukushima is warmer than the average of past 30 years by around 2.5 degrees C   http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/04/sea-water-offshore-fukushima-is-warmer-than-the-average-of-past-30-years-by-2-5%E2%84%83/
This dramatic rise in temperature was also picked up in the Fukushima webcam discussion thread, in ENE news.
On  April 4th, I looked at the Unisys Weather - Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies chart and it was still showing up. This is a map from their archives for April 7th 2013   http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom-130407.gif
This comes from a very helpful SST anomalies archive provided by Unisys.  You can link to it from the previous map, or follow this link, http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/ to a list which is updated about weekly for sea surface temperature anomalies.  I couldn't see anything significant in the March 4th weekly map, or in the weeks just preceding it, but there is clear evidence in the week of March 11th onwards of a temperature rise.
There is also a Unisys Weather - Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies chart  (current)  http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssa&inv=0&t=cur    and Elders has a an excellent chart of current anomalies,  http://www.eldersweather.com.au
If you are also new to this area, don't forget that these are maps of sea surface temperature anomalies, not overall sea surface temperatures.  It can be a bit confusing!
I don't think that global warming is responsible for this.

58% increase in female breast cancer and 50% increase in lung cancer in men downwind of two Magnox reactors in Wales. Report and TV program

On Monday 19th December, the Welsh-language TV channel S4C published new evidence of a cancer cluster near the nuclear power stations at Wylfa in Wales. Commissioned by S4C, Professor Chris Busby analysed official data for cancer deaths, showing a 58% increase in female breast cancer and 50% increased lung cancer in men downwind of the two Magnox reactors, which began production in 1971. The findings are statistically significant.

    This information was derived from llrc, the Low Level Radiation Campaign.

Why now?

     Several years ago, when I wrote Everyone Can be a herO, (fiction from the future) I didn't know what was going to happen at Fukushima.  In my book I guessed that the English government would be sparing when it came to the truth about the amount of radioactive contamination left and that there would still be people around wanting to make money out of nuclear power. There would also be a majority of people who didn't want it and just wanted a healthy and fairer life for the future generations, although they knew that, because of the accident, their future would be blighted by increased disease and mutations.  In my book, however, no one speaks about it. The kids don't know much about nuclear waste, because they boycotted nuclear power lessons on principle.
     Society has learned to cope without oil and it hasn't been as hard as people expected, but when a nuclear accident happens, this is something that can't just be a forgotten event. The aftermath is there for millions of years.
     It takes people power and a deal of bravery to protest and stand up against the hidden lobby who want to make money out of the situation and whereas the good guys play clean, the bad guys play dirty.  Plus ca change...

Find out more at Inside Outsider Publications  http://www.insideoutsider.co.uk

Sometimes you write it = and then it happens.

     When I wrote "Everyone Can be a herO" I hoped that there wouldn't be another major disaster in the  nuclear power industry.... It seemed pretty unlikely because there have been quite a few accidents which I, for one, would never have heard about if I hadn't started to research them... However, we all know about Fukushima. 
    Much nuclear contamination won't go away for millions of years..there is still the problem of the nuclear waste we are allowing to be built up.  This is one of the things the kids in the book have to face.  Our waste.. their inheritance.
     I thought that there would still be decent kids around, however, like today, and they would be kids who couldn't see any point in violence and just wanted to have fun, look out for their friends, and have a sustainable future.
    It's up to us whether or not they do.
 http:// www.insideoutsider.co.uk

Hello ice age...Bye Bye Global warming. Please let's get rid of nuclear power before the freeze.

For years I have been getting fed up at at being told that nuclear power is zero carbon rated.  This is an absolute lie to me because, for a start Uranium mining is anything but low carbon, and the legacy of sickness and contamination of water and soil that goes with it can be devastating.  Are we human beings or unfeeling aliens?  I hope the former and no one on earth should wish this for their neighbour.
We have had yet another nuclear accident at Fukushima and it is still out of control and the Missouri River is flooding and apparently if one of the dams burst it will be a very serous scenario at the Nebraska nuclear plant..
The people of Italy, Germany, Switzerland, have recently said No to nuclear and countries like Norway made up their mind years ago not to go down that road. Surely this is the time to begin to close down the plants before anything worse happens. We know that the leukaemias will already come in a few years time, the hard cancers will follow some years later.... and they will. There will also be other diseases and abnormalities which will be genetic.
Now, if the scientists are right, we are almost certainly heading into a new mini ice age and that means that global warming won't happen.  This means that nuclear power industry simply can't use the carbon argument any more.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/  and, even sooner with the news: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html
I personally think that peak oil will come upon us far sooner than most people are allowing for and that will have a huge effect on our contribution to global warming. I just don't want future generations to be trapped into drinking water which is radioactive, eating food which is radioactive and grown in soil contaminated with alpha particle emitters.  It won't seem funny to them, I'd guess when they know that they and their children are tasting the future and it's one of leukaemias, cancers and other diseases, and a genetic legacy they hadn't asked for.
Certainly, it probably is a fact that whatever these sunspots herald, the earth has a habit of going into another real ice age every 15,000 to 20,000 years and as we are around 18,000 years we may not have too long before this hits in again.
A lot of the things that have come out of the global warming theory are useful.  Every solar panel and wind farm out at sea, wave machine and tidal power station will be a boon and surely micro generation is a blessing. I love the idea of generating electricity at the site it is needed.  It's fun!
Keeping your home warm will be even more important and if nuclear power is allowed to be one of the future
mix, heaven help the poor people because according to the bright guys I've read,  the costs will be passed on in the electricity bill and they will be huge. Don't forget that decommissioning the plants after their twenty years or so, takes a huge amount of energy and costs a huge amount too, and we still don't know what to do with the waste, a lot of which which will be dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. That will cost too. 
Anyway, grease the runners on the sled and hold onto your sweaters, because you may need them!!