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Allison is an assistant who has been in Aomori this week - supporting our "Tokyo Two" team. She's been blogging throughout the week - during Junichi and Toru's trial. Here's some extracts from her blog posts as a summary of this week's trial proceedings - along with drawings from the courtroom - by Jules, another one of our campaign assistants (her drawing on the left is of the lead Tokyo Two defence counsel, Yuichi Kaido, in court.)
March 8th, Witnesses and Tall Tales It began with a testimony given today by former crew member (Mr. X) of the Nisshin Maru. He is entangled in...
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 Myrto, one of our agriculture campaigners, tells us what's wrong with genetically engineered (GE) crops - and what you can do to stop them.
The other night I had some friends for dinner and I decided to prepare for a starter - my Mumâs favorite recipe: eggplant dip. It is so easy and yummy. You grill the whole eggplant till it burns, you remove the skin, you blend it with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper and serve it with fresh bread. Delicious!! I was explaining to my friends that all ingredients were organic and another reason I chose to cook this recipe was that I was so happy
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You hear a lot in the media about supposed "exaggerations" of the IPCC. Did you hear much about their understatements?
Yeah, neither did we.
IPCC would never have published an implausibly high 3 meter upper limit like this, but it did not hesitate with the implausibly low 59 cm. That is because within the IPCC culture, being âalarmistâ is bad and being âconservativeâ (i.e. underestimating the potential severity of things) is good.
Real Climate, Sealevelgate.
Worth reading.
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It's been a long an intense week for the Tokyo Two in Japan. They are on trial and facing up to 10 years in jail for exposing a whaling scandal (read all about the scandal here). They are encouraged by all the supportive comments they have been getting - on facebook, twitter and our blogs. Junichi asked me to post this response from him. "I'm very happy and excited to receive all the warm messages from all over the world. The last 4 days of trial have finished, leaving the team here in Japan feeling very good. The court has asked two current crew members of the whaling fleet to...
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We havenât mentioned our plans for a nuclear comedy lately. Weâve been working on it a long time now and are nearly ready to pitch it to a television studio. Hereâs how it looks so far. This is the treatment which is the outline or synopsis⦠Green Valley is your typical nuclear power station. The showâs theme tune is âFunky Townâ. The usual things happen and hilarity ensues. The first episode opens with our heroes reading the new poster on the staff notice board while drinking from the water cooler. The poster says âDO NOT HAVE CHILDRENâ and someone has spiked the water with radioactive tritium as a joke. The security perimeter...
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 Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
The proliferation business - Unstoppable?
âEVER since the atom was split, governments have struggled to control a force with potential for good that can also wreak awful destruction. Some argue it is impossible to stop technologies that can keep the lights on from being used to make bombs. That is a sobering thought in a world ready to re-embrace relatively carbon-free nuclear power. But David Albright, a respected chronicler of undercover nuclear shenanigans, tells a more alarming story: just how little most governments have done to halt the bomb's spread. In the 1960s John Kennedy fretted that without...
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Greenpeace activists protest against GE in front of EU-parliament.
© Greenpeace / Eric de Mildt
In Bulgaria the parliament has voted to ban GE crop cultivation. The decision comes as opposition grows to the EU Commission's "quiet" introduction of GE potato (Amflora), while debate in the European Parliament was blocked. Many countries have now taken national measures to prevent what was the first GE-approved crop in the EU for 12 years. In India, controversy continues over the proposed regulatory bill that would remove State-level powers to control GE, placing sole jurisdiction in a centralized authority. The Hindu reported a Congressional Committee of the State of Andhra Pradesh has...
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So, without a doubt, nuclear power fails the safety, economic and reliability tests. Is it, however, flexible? Not so much. Over the last year it became much more clear that the problem with nuclear (and coal) power stations is that they are too inflexible to be able to fit in energy system with higher percentages of renewable sources. The nuclear industry responded by saying that reactors could âload-followâ (which means they rapidly adjust their power output according to fluctuating demands for electricity). However this depends very much on the power plant design. French nuclear corporation AREVAâs so-called state of the art third generation EPR reactor design has already been criticised for lacking...
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Today's big stories from the nuclear industry: Academics demand independent inquiry into new nuclear reactors
âPressure on the government to organise an independent inquiry into a new generation of nuclear power stations will intensify today with a call for action from a group of 90 high-ranking academics, politicians and technical experts. The huge lobby says the "climategate" email scandal and other events have shaken public trust in the scientific governance of environmental risk, making a wider assessment of nuclear power more important than ever. Paul Dorfman, an energy policy research fellow at Warwick University who has been coordinating support for an inquiry, said more debate...
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Greenpeace activists last night blocked a cargo of dupleted uranium going from France to Russia.
© Pierre Gleizes
Fifteen Greenpeace activists last night blocked a train carrying depleted uranium from leaving Val-de-Mar in France, calling for a moratorium on the export of nuclear waste. An AFP story reported the activists chained themselves at 01.00 to the railway tracks at the rear- and front-end of the cargo leaving the Areva nuclear plant at Pierrelatte (Drôme). Axel Renaudin of Greenpeace said they aimed to stay in place for ten hours to delay the convoy, which was otherwise headed to join the Kaptain Kuroptev bound for Russia. The activists were in...
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Protests during the COP15 Global Day of Action in Copenhagen. IT companies such as Nokia have potential to be a big part of the solution to climate change, but many have failed to raise to the challenge. © Kristian Buus/Greenpeace
Nokiaâs in the hot seat this week. The telecoms giant has agreed to answer readersâ questions on its environmental record at the Guardian newspaperâs website â what better chance to ask the company what it really thinks about the challenge of catastrophic climate change? Until now, Nokia has been found a little wanting when it comes to speaking up about the most pressing environmental issue of our time. ...
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I can still remember the glow on our teenage faces as we gathered around the Greenpeace logo, ready to discuss our first action as a newly founded 'Greenteam'. The issues then? Energy efficiency in our school and people who didn't recycle.
Iâm no longer a teenager and the issues Iâm concerned about have become more global, and, unfortunately, much more pressing, but Greenpeace is still one of the best places to tackle them.
Having worked as a journalist and writer in London for several years, Iâm currently on board in Amsterdam, where I hope to make my contribution to a sane & sustainable future at this crucial point in time.
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Trouble, or so they say, comes in threes and so it is for the designs of the so-called new âthird generationâ of nuclear reactors. Look at AREVAâs European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design. Two are currently being right now â one in Finland and one in France â and both projects are currently massively behind schedule and over budget, and plagued with safety and construction defects. The design, also currently being considered for construction in the UK, was the subject of an unprecedented statement by the UK nuclear safety regulator (HSEâs ND), the French nuclear regulator (ASN), and the Finnish nuclear regulator (STUK) which said the EPRâs safety system isnât independent from its control system and therefore...
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Today's big stories from the nuclear industry: Don't buy Obama's greenwashing of nuclear power
âLast month, inspectors found dangerous chemicals in the groundwater near the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. The situation demonstrates that from the mining of uranium ore to the storage of radioactive waste, nuclear reactors remain as dirty, risky, and as costly as they ever were. If President Obama's recent enthusiasm for nuclear reactors has led you to believe otherwise, you've bought in to the administration's greenwashing of nuclear. On February 16, while President Obama was in Maryland announcing an $8.3bn taxpayer-backed loan guarantee for Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors...
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Greenpeace has called for a renewed moratorium ("GE-Free!") in Switzerland on GE crops.
© Greenpeace.
Following the "quiet" introduction of genetically-engineered potato in the EU Commission (BASF's Amflora), more opposition has been stirring. Earlier this week an open debate on the issue was blocked in the European Parliament, to which the Greens responded by holding up banners calling "for a GE-Free Europe" at their plenary session in Strasbourg. Members "denounced" the EU Commission President Barrosso's "rush" to introduce GE potato. Twelve countries have now moved to block its cultivation, including recently Austria and Malta. Barrosso responded to the Greens' protest by saying âI salute your groupâs enthusiasm.
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