If recent posts are any indication, contributors to this blog were shocked by presentations by Dr. Helen Caldicott as part of her book-promotion tour. If we had been better students of history, we might have been spared the shock. Consider the following descriptions of her:
Were these descriptions inspired by a recent visit to Poets and Busboys? No. You can find all this and more in The War against the Atom, by Samuel McCracken. It was published by Basic Books (New York) in 1982. Check out pages 113 through 116.
I guess some things never change.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Helen Caldicott
Dr. Caldicott has considerable stage presence, a certain articulateness, and considerable gifts as an improviser.The author of these descriptions also noted that her critics have described her as "“overemotional"”.
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The typical Caldicott lecture ... starts out with a quick and lucid account of the various forms of radiation. She then moves to note that it is possible to cause genetic and other physical defects through radiation. From there it is a grand leap to proclaim that nuclear power plants, because they produce radiation, which has been shown to cause various defects, must inevitably produce epidemics of such defects. (There is never any argumentation to suggest how the radiation is to be let loose upon the public so as to cause these defects.)
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From this point on, coherence and evidence begin to go downhill.
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The evidence is, regrettably, that Dr. Caldicott'’s impassioned speeches frequently have little to do with reality.
Were these descriptions inspired by a recent visit to Poets and Busboys? No. You can find all this and more in The War against the Atom, by Samuel McCracken. It was published by Basic Books (New York) in 1982. Check out pages 113 through 116.
I guess some things never change.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Helen Caldicott
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Chemical Fire Spews Chlorine Over N.C. Town
17,000 Urged to Flee; Dozens Go to Hospitals
By STEVE HARTSOE, AP
APEX, N.C. (Oct. 6) - More than 17,000 people were urged to flee their homes on the outskirts of Raleigh early Friday after a thunderous series of explosions and a raging fire at a hazardous-waste disposal plant released a greenish-yellow cloud of deadly chlorine gas.
Watch Video: Explosion at Hazardous Waste Plant
CNN: 'Very Grave Danger'
No employees were believed to have been inside the EQ Industrial Services plant when it was rocked by the blasts late Thursday. Officials said 44 people went to emergency rooms, most complaining of breathing problems, but nearly all had been released by midday.
A timely rainstorm helped scrub the air but Mayor Keith Weatherly said the fire would not be extinguished until Saturday morning at the earliest. None of the evacuated residents will be allowed to return home until the blaze is extinguished.
"We want to err on the side of safety and not send anybody home," said Apex Fire Chief Mark Haraway.
Three significant fires burned Friday night, all under the collapsed building that housed EQ Industrial Services.
The plant handles a variety of industrial wastes, includes paints, solvents, pesticides and weed killer.
Because of the dangers in that mix, firefighters waited for daybreak to determine how to attack the blaze, and used a video camera to get a look at the burning building. Schools were closed, along with downtown Apex.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
"Because of the many different types of waste that we bring in, it's very difficult to determine the cause of the fire," EQ spokesman Robert Doyle said.
About 25 employees work at the plant, but all had left the building by 7 p.m. Thursday, he said.
State Department of Environment and Natural Resources officials said Friday afternoon their tests "had not detected anything out of the ordinary in the air." The department was also testing bodies of water in the area.
In March, the state fined EQ $32,000 for six violations at the plant, including failing to take steps to "minimize the possibility of a sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous waste ... which could threaten human health or the environment."
Doyle cautioned the violations might not have had anything to do with the fire, and the state said the company had passed a required inspection as recently as Sept. 28-29.
Last year, a similar fire at one of the company's plants in Romulus, Mich. drove about 2,000 people from their homes and sent at least 32 people for treatment at hospitals.
An investigation is still ongoing, said Robert McCann, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He said in an e-mail that extensive damage from the fire had made it difficult to determine a cause and if there were any violations at the plant.
Weatherly said it was unclear how many people fled, but several hundred took shelter at schools, while others probably stayed with friends or at hotels.
Beth Roach's family left their home about two miles from the plant around 3 a.m.
"The bad part was that we didn't really know what was going on," she said. "Ultimately, that's what made our decision to leave."
APTV 10-06-06 1853EDT