Fukushima radiation plumes have now struck the Carolinas and Florida, say reports

(NaturalNews) Several nuclear power plants in the southeastern US have begun to detect low levels of radioactive iodine-131 in the air, which is the same type of radiation now being found all over the place as a result of the mega-earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011. Reuters has indicated that power plants in both North and South Carolina, as well as one in Florida, have all detected what they say are “low levels” of the non-native radioactive substance. “If there were radiation coming from one our own sites, we would be seeing other types of radiation than iodine-131,” said Drew Elliot, a spokesman for Progress Energy. “Other nuclear stations throughout the East Coast all started picking this up within the last week. It all points to something coming from overseas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both say it poses no threat to public safety.” Progress Energy’s Hartsville, SC, plant and Crystal River, Fla., plant both detected what the company says are low levels of radioactive iodine-131. And Duke Energy’s two plants in South Carolina, as well as its plant in Huntersville, NC, all reported levels of the non-native radioactive substance as well. The report ties in to various others that have detected radioactive particles in rainwater in Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. It appears that all across the US, evidence of the Fukushima nuclear fallout is gradually beginning to turn up, and yet with every report comes empty assurances from government officials that everything is fine, and that the levels being detected are supposedly harmless to humans (http://www.naturalnews.com/031871_radiation_rainwater.html). Meanwhile, continued reports are trickling in that indicate a rapidly-escalating crisis at the Fukushima plant. Deadly plutonium is beginning to show up in soil samples near the plant, and dangerously-high levels of radiation are now being detected in seawater nearly a mile from where the nuclear plant dumps water into the ocean. And this is only the information that is being publicly released, sometimes days after officials have become aware of it. Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-radiation-south-idUSTRE72R4Z620110328

UN projection shows radioactive plume hitting Southern California by Friday

(NaturalNews) Experts from the United Nations (UN) Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) have put out a forecast projecting the potential path of the Fukushima Daiichi radiation plume, and they say by sometime on Friday it will hit the US West Coast of Southern California. Based on wind patterns and the direction the plume is headed, it will pass through the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean near Alaska on Thursday, and head down through Southern California and onward east through Friday. You can view the interactive map forecast of the plume’s progression here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/science/plume-graphic.html?ref=science The CTBTO is tasked with monitoring nuclear activity around the world and conducting radiation projection in order to assess where to track nuclear activity. But according to a recent report in The New York Times (NYT), the UN agency refused to release the Fukushima forecast to the public, even though it insists that the plume will be so dispersed that it will not be harmful. The NYT was able to obtain it from another source. “It’s simply an indication,” said Lassina Zerbo, head of CTBTO’s International Data Center, to the NYT. “We have global coverage. So when something happens, it’s important for us to known which station can pick up the event.” Numerous US government groups continue to claim that the radiation from the Fukushima plant will not be harmful to Americans. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for instance, claims that because the nations are thousands of miles apart, the levels of radioactivity will be harmless. However a plume is still a plume, and the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet sure seemed concerned when it recently moved its ships out of the plume’s path. The CTBTO projection indicator ends at March 18, however reports indicate that if it were to have continued beyond Friday and into the days to follow, the plume is expected to continue east through Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Sources for this story include: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/science/17plume.html?_r=2

Horrifying environmental impact of non-Gulf shrimp

(NaturalNews) Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the United States, with the average resident consuming 4.1 pounds per year. But this food comes at a serious cost for the planet and for human health, warns Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It . “Unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world’s productive ecosystems,” Richardson writes on Alternet.org. “Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of ‘sustainable shrimp’ are so far nonexistent.” Like all seafood, shrimp are wild animals, and many are still caught in the wild. Nearly all shrimp fishing in the world, however, is performed with the highly destructive technique known as trawling: Fishermen attach weighted nets the size of football fields to their boats, then drag them along the ocean floor scooping up all life in their path. This method produces pounds of so-called “bycatch” for every pound of shrimp caught, killing non-commercial (and often endangered) species such as sharks, rays, sea turtles and juvenile red snapper in massive numbers. In fact, although only 2 percent of the world’s fish catch is composed of shrimp, one-third of its bycatch comes from shrimp fishing. Trawling also devastates marine habitats such as coral reefs and the ocean floor — where 98 percent of all ocean life lives. The mud plumes stirred up by trawling are large enough to be visible from space. “Trawling is comparable to bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one species of bird,” Richardson writes. Even farmed shrimp are not bycatch free, since they are fed primarily from wild fish — roughly 1.4 pounds per pound of farmed shrimp. Thus, even the most sustainably farmed shrimp from closed, inland pools still come with a hefty ecological cost. Most farmed shrimp, of course, do not come from the above best case scenario. Shrimp farms are responsible for the destruction of 38 percent of the world’s unique and crucial mangrove habitats. For example, fully 70 percent of all Ecuadorian mangroves have been destroyed for shrimp farming. Ninety-three percent of Ecuadorian shrimp is exported to the United States. Coastal mangroves are highly diverse ecosystems that play critical roles in carbon sequestration and protecting inland habitats and communities from storm and tsunami damage. Because of their productivity and location, mangroves make ideal shrimp farming territory. As a consequence, many shrimp farmers simply clear-cut a section of mangroves and close it off from the ocean with nets. “In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain,” Richardson writes. “Even after the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back.” Shrimp consumers may also pay a more personal cost: Shrimp ponds are regularly treated with toxic chemicals such as with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, in addition to pesticides and piscicides such as chlorine and retenone. In many farms, the shrimp are treated before sale with Borax, caustic soda and the suspected neurotoxin sodium tripolyphosphate. It’s not just chemicals that consumers have to worry about. Widespread antibiotic use in fish farming produces, paradoxically, shrimp with high concentrations of bacteria. A recent test of imported ready-to-eat shrimp found it to be contaminated with 162 different species of bacteria that were collectively resistant to a total of 10 different antibiotics. Richardson has few suggestions to make for those who wish to consume sustainably produced shrimp. Because of the prevalence of trawling, she suggests avoiding all wild-caught shrimp. Yet no certification process exists to ensure the sustainability of farmed shrimp. “Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp?” she asks. “Currently, it’s near impossible.” Sources for this story include: www.alternet.org/food/145369/shrimp’s_dirty_secrets:_why_america’s_favorite_seafood_is_a_health_and_environmental_nightmare.

Hawaiian ocean water could be used to produce renewable energy

(NaturalNews) A team of researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa believe that ocean water on the Leeward side of the Hawaiian islands — that is, the downwind side — can be used to produce clean, renewable energy. They say ocean-based renewable energy plants may one day be able to use both warm and cold ocean water in the area to power heat engines, ultimately generating a steady stream of renewable energy. The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy refers to this technology as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). The way it works is a heat engine is installed between warm water at the surface and cold water underneath. Both streams are captured by the engine’s turbines and used to spin them, generating electricity. The technology has been around for a while, but has yet to become widely used due to the relatively low cost of oil and other fossil fuels. In other words, there has not been an urgent need for this type of energy generation technology, so funding for it is limited. But as nations gradually shy away from high polluting fuels like oil and towards cleaner, more renewable energy sources, the need for OTEC plants may soon arise. And since Hawaii’s Leeward shores have an ideal balance of both cold and warm waters, they would be the perfect place to install these engines. “Testing that was done in the 1980s clearly demonstrates the feasibility of this technology,” explained Gerard Nihous from the University of Hawaii. “Now it’s just a matter of paying for it.” Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/aiop-gef080310.php

17 big questions about the handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

(NaturalNews) What’s clear about the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is that the independent journalists are doing a better job of asking the really tough questions than the mainstream media. Sure, CNN, Fox and others are bringing some attention to the matter, and they’ve done some solid reporting on it, but they haven’t yet found a way to ask the deeper questions like why the U.S. government seems to be colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill. Just the other day, I found an article entitled, “16 Burning Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill” on the TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com site (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/16-burning-questions-about-the-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-that-we-deserve-some-answers-to). It was a really insightful collection of important questions, so I’ve repeated them below. The author of these questions wasn’t mentioned on the page, so I regret I cannot properly attribute the list, but I do think they’re worth reviewing, so I’ve included my own commentary and an extra question below. Here are the 16 questions: #1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public? Mike’s comment: Good question. Much of the response activity to the spill seems to be about controlling the public’s perception and limiting media access to the spill site rather than actually cleaning up the mess. #2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a “Gulf recovery czar” who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill. So is appointing a “czar” Obama’s idea of taking charge of a situation? #3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK’s North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico? Mike’s answer: Because Corexit kills sea animals and makes them sink and disappear rather than allowing them to wash up on shore where the emotional outcry would be even worse than it is already. #4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours. That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish. So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren’t they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf? Mike’s answer: Sadly, BP is running the show in the Gulf, not the government! The U.S. government has sold out to private corporations who now think they own the gulf and can run operations there however they see fit. #5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops? What are they going to do to people? Mike’s answer: They’re obviously going to poison the entire Gulf Coast region if hurricanes whip up these chemicals and deposit them on land. We could be looking at a complete wipeout of the Florida citrus industry, for example, if all the worst conditions converge. #6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to wildlife that encounter it? #7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands? Mike answer: Remember the Tsunami in the Indian ocean a few years back? The animals fled first, while the clueless people stayed behind and got clobbered by the deadly wave. I think a similar thing could be happening in the Gulf. All it takes is one hurricane to turn the entire region into a toxic stew of chemical poison. #8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites? Mike’s answer: Yes, this is the real question. BP is running security in the Gulf the same way Halliburton runs security in the Middle East. The corporate contractors are now the police force in the area, and they’re running the Gulf as if they owned it! This is a clear indication that the corporations have taken over our government. #9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo? #10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? What don’t they want the American people to see? Mike’s answer: There are lots of answer to this one: The feds probably don’t want people in small airplanes taking aerial photos and posting them online (because the Obama administration is working overtime to cover up the truth here, much like the Bush administration did with the flag-draped coffins coming home from war in the Middle East). It could also be that they are planning something really crazy like a deep ocean nuke to collapse the well, and they don’t want civilians falling out of the sky when the mushroom cloud appears. #11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking. If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak? Mike’s answer: BP actually doesn’t expect to stop this leak anytime soon. They are clearly in full-on spin mode, just trying to deny the truth and spin the words to buy themselves more time to offload stock shares before the whole thing comes tumbling down. #12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters? Mike’s answer: Because BP broke the ocean floor, and now huge volumes of gas hydrates (which contain methane) are bubbling up from places that were previously trapped safely underground. #13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion. Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn’t the general public been warned? #14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a “mysterious illness”? Mike’s answer: This is going to be the Gulf War Syndrome of the Gulf Coast. Or the 9/11 asbestos question affecting firefighters. There will be a wave of toxic side effects from the use of chemicals in the Gulf, and both BP and the federal government will predictably deny any link between the chemicals and the health effects for years to come. #15) If “70% or 80%” of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore? Mike’s answer: Nothing, of course. The oil is going to reach the shore, and there’s nothing BP or the feds can do to stop in. In fact, it seems as if they are trying to interfere with the cleanup by halting the barges that were supposed to be vacuuming oil just off the beaches. #16) It is being reported that the deep sea oil plumes are creating huge “dead zones” where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen. If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic “dead zone”? Mike’s answer: Indeed, that is precisely what looks likely to happen. The Gulf of Mexico could become a massive dead zone, adding to the long list of humanity’s crimes against the planet. See my related CounterThink cartoon at: http://www.naturalnews.com/029015_atrocities_nature.html I’ve also added one more question of my own: #17) Why is our government colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill? Remember the BP press conferences on cable news? A U.S. Coast Guard representative was standing right there beside the BP spokesperson, almost as if she were a subordinate of BP. This is insane! If anything, the US Coast Guard should be telling BP what to do, not the other way around. And why is the US Coast Guard restricting reporters’ access to the spill areas, threatening them with arrest if they “trespass.” Trespass into PUBLIC waters? Doesn’t anybody realize that BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and if we want to take our boats out into the Gulf to get some video of what’s really happening there, that’s our right! But the U.S. government is now working for BP, it seems, and they’re trying to protect BP’s image by restricting the freedoms of ordinary Americans. Sound familiar? That’s why I think this Gulf of Mexico disaster is another 9/11 reactionary freedom squasher in the works. Just wait… you’ll see what kind of freedom-destroying ideas are put forth by our lawmakers in response to this catastrophe. When it’s all said and done, it won’t only be British Petroleum that loses; it will be all of us. The Corporatocracy and government collusion What we’re really witnessing here with the BP disaster is our own government colluding with the powerful corporatocracy to cover up the truth all while making it worse by interfering with legitimate cleanup efforts. It’s almost as if the federal government were actively working to worsen the problem and expand the impact of the disaster. But that brings up the question: Why? Why would our own government worsen a catastrophe? The answer, of course, is right in front of you. Just visit ground zero in New York City and remind yourself of all the various ways the U.S. government expanded its power following the collapse of the twin towers. “Never waste a good crisis” is the mantra of Big Government today, and the easiest way to steal even more power away from the people is to turn a small disaster into a big disaster, then leap in with a “government solution” that enacts some large, oppressive new act that never would have been possible before the disaster. So what kind of oppressive new laws does the Obama administration want to put in place in response to this disaster? Perhaps government control over all oceans, or government control over all seafood. Maybe they want to outlaw oil over the next 25 years and force everybody to transition to some other form of energy (which may not actually be a bad idea from an ecological perspective, but at what price to freedom?). There are a thousand other conspiracy theories that try to guess at what the government’s true agenda might be in this moment. While it’s hard to say which of them (if any) might be true, one thing is crystal clear: The government does not seem interested in solving the problem in the Gulf of Mexico. It is covering up the truth, threatening mainstream journalists who try to photograph the region, restricting air travel over the well site, restricting boat travel anywhere near the spill, and basically lying to the public on a daily basis about what’s really happening there. That alone should make any thinking person suspicious. If the situation were really under control, why would they have to lie about it? US government poisons its own citizens There is precedent for believing that the U.S. government might try to poison its own citizens in order to achieve a political goal. During Prohibition, the U.S. government actually released poisoned alcohol in order to harm (or kill) those who were defying the law and drinking liquor. That story is published today here on NaturalNews.com. Read it to learn more about what our own government may be capable of doing when it wishes to exercise power of the People.

Corporate atrocities against nature may ultimately destroy human civilization

(NaturalNews) What’s most striking about the present BP oil catastrophe is not that it is an aberration but rather part of a dangerous pattern of mankind’s propensity to destroy nature. To destroy life in a large region of an ocean isn’t even new: The world already has over two hundred “dead zones” where fish can’t live because the ocean water has no more oxygen left thanks to the runoff effects of man-made chemicals. Not content with mere deforestation and the vast destruction of biodiversity on land, Man has now expanded to destroy the oceans through overfishing, ocean acidification from CO2 emissions, agricultural runoff, flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain and unleashing crude oil directly into the ocean waters. It almost seems as if mankind were somehow bent on destroying itself by first destroying everything else on the planet just to see what happens. Human beings, by any honest accounting, are repeat offenders engaged in crimes against nature . This article, by the way, isn’t some clever way to try to push us all toward a U.N.-controlled world government where every human action is regulated by environmental cops; it’s merely an observation of what’s really happening right now on our planet. I’m a Constitutionalist and remain strongly opposed to UN control as much as any properly-informed American. In no way do I support suppressing our individual freedoms or liberties. In fact, the problems here are not with the People but rather with the corporations . The criminal corporations It is the corporations that are committing these crimes against nature: Big Pharma’s mass poisoning of the waters, BP’s oil catastrophe crime against the planet in the Gulf Coast, the manufacture of Depleted Uranium shells by wealthy “defense” contractors, factory farming by meat producers, the poisoning of our farms by Monsanto and its campaign to dominate nature with genetically modified seeds… you get the picture. If you really look hard at the issues, it’s the corporations who are destroying our planet and thereby destroying future survivability for the rest of us. It is the corporations, in essence, that are the criminals who are now destroying the very world around us, and if We the People continue to let these corporations engage in such actions, it won’t be long before we wake up and find ourselves enslaved in a Corporatocracy that has stolen from us the very world in which we had hoped to raise our children. What is abundantly clear now is that corporations will do anything to make money, from the cruel and inhumane factory farming of cows to dumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals in the ocean to try to sink the dead sea animals in the Gulf. Corporations would set fire to the entire planet if that act could somehow boost profits by 50% next quarter. The unbridled greed that drives these corporations is simply incompatible with sustainable life on our planet. Through their careless, greed-driven actions, corporations are threatening YOUR life and the lives of your children. I say enough is enough. An armed revolt against the corporations? There is already some mainstream talk about arresting the CEO of British Petroleum for his crimes against nature. It will never happen, of course, because these corporations wield too much power over government entities. We’ve seen it time and time again: Corporations are almost never held accountable for their crimes. It is becoming increasingly clear that any action to hold these corporations accountable for their actions must come from the People — most likely in the form of a dedicated revolt, or perhaps even an armed “mass citizens’ arrest” of the corporate criminals. Imagine ten thousand armed, angry citizens from Texas, Louisiana and Florida converging on the BP headquarters in Houston, led by a local Sheriff, marching in and arresting all the top CEOs of British Petroleum. That’s the kind of action that needs to start taking place if any justice is ever to be found in our modern world of corporate corruption and government collusion. When it comes to corporate crimes, the justice system has utterly failed. The corporations that commit crimes are almost never held responsible. Consider the aftermath of the Goldman Sachs fiasco in 2008 – 2009, when Wall Street banksters ripped off the American people to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and then got bailed out by the U.S. government with trillions of dollars in gift money. How is that justice? Similarly, after drug giant Pfizer was found to have committed massive marketing fraud that violated federal law, the company was deemed “too big to fail” and was simply given a free pass by the government to stay in business, defrauding customers, states and nations. Pfizer set up a shell company to take the fall for its crimes, then went right back to business as usual. Read the story on CNN if you want to learn more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/02/pfizer.bextra/index.html As CNN reports: Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you. That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns. When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for tough, effective enforcement. “It sends a clear message” to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when they declared victory. It’s a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they break the laws intended to protect patients…” Whether it’s Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Food or Big Agriculture, every large and powerful corporations gets away with murder because laws are never properly applied to them. BP is destroying an entire ocean — and the livelihoods of millions of people — and will probably get off with a large fine and a slap on the wrist. In two years, it will all be back to business as usual, polluting the oceans, destroying life and ignoring safety rules and regulations once again while the American people suffer. More dangerous than terrorists Corporations are a greater threat to our lives than terrorists . That much should be clear by now: When corporations poison our food supply with toxic chemical ingredients; when they poison our bodies with fraudulently-marketed pharmaceuticals; when they poison our oceans with careless oil drilling… they are threatening our lives and our livelihoods. They are destroying the only world we know, and they are proving themselves to be far more dangerous to our collective future than any terrorist organization. The real terrorists, it turns out, have “Inc.” after their name. And if we really want to go after the terrorists who present a clear and present danger to our health and lives, we must rise up against the corporate machine that now controls our media, our food, our sick-care system, our patents, our elected officials and our energy. We must gather our forces to make legally-justified citizens’ arrests of those at the top who are responsible for these atrocities against nature and the People. We must unite out of a common desire for survival against the corporate criminals who are destroying our very futures as we speak. We must seek the aid of the local Sheriffs, Constables and community law enforcement officials who would join us in making these arrests, and then we must march on the corporate headquarters of these criminal corporations, right through their front doors and into their corporate offices where arrests will be made at gunpoint. And why gunpoint? Because corporations do not respect law, nor ethics, nor morality, nor compassion towards others. They only respect one thing: force . So we must reluctantly use force — backed by the common sense of common law — to make these corporations stop destroying our planet and our livelihoods. I’m not saying we march in there and shoot them; I’m saying we march in and arrest them and bring them to trial in local courts, with local jurors who can make local commonsense decisions about what to do with these criminal corporate executives. The feds cannot be trusted on this. We must deal with these corporations on a local level, with the widespread support of the everyday people whose lives are being destroyed by these corporations. The extinction of the human race This is more than just holding corporations accountable for specific crimes such as poisoning the Gulf Coast; it’s about our very survival . We’re not merely talking about small, local damage to specific regions or industries here — we are talking about the possibility of the extinction of the human race. If the world’s powerful corporations are allowed to continue operating as they have done, they will destroy our world and cause the collapse of human civilization . We cannot survive when suffocated under a cloud of chemical toxicity, financial fraud, genetically-modified seeds and widespread environmental destruction. Corporations are incapable of acting within the guidelines of long-term sustainable living. Their power and reach are now so great that they have the capacity to destroy modern civilization (which is quite fragile already). Rising up against the corporations now means fighting for our very survival . What BP has made as clear as day is that we must now make a choice: We can choose to appease powerful corporations and exempt them from any real enforcement of rules, regulations or common sense; or we can take a stand against them, arrest their top executives, shut down their operations, revoke their corporate charters and set course in a new world without the destructive influence of endless greed backed by incessant profit-taking. The worship of profit has become a scourge on human civilization. Unbridled greed is now our curse. “Economic activity”, taken as a lone figure without the context in which it was generated, holds no measure of real value, and it should never been pursued for its own sake. We must now shift our consciousness to a new era of the protection of life . We must value quality of life , not imaginary numbers in a bank account, and quality of life is a complex, interdependent equation that necessarily involves the sustaining of all the diverse ecosystems that now remain on our planet. For humans to live sustainably, happily and abundantly, we must stop destroying nature and start protecting it. We must be its steward, not its exploiter. And those corporations engaged in the mass destruction or poisoning of living ecosystems must be courageously arrested as criminals and prosecuted for their crimes against both the People and the planet. There is no other way that we will survive the next century. Poisoning our planet on such a massive scale in an inexcusable act. We the People will either rise up against it, or we shall be destroyed by it. I, for one, am willing to fight for our survival. Because I don’t want human civilization to just be a sorry footnote in the history of life on planet Earth.

Toxic Corexit dispersant chemicals remained secret as feds colluded with Big Business

(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public with the list of ingredients used to manufacture Corexit , the chemical dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First, the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry’s “trade secrets” for so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now? As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst at OMB Watch said, “EPA had the authority to act all along; its decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and place the public’s interest ahead of corporate interests.” On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated a “chronic and acute health hazard” by the EPA. It is made with 2-butoxyethanol , a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill. A newer Corexit recipe dubbed the “9500 formula” contains dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate , a detergent chemical that’s also found in laxatives. What do you suppose happens to the marine ecosystem when fish and sea turtles ingest this chemical through their gills and skin? And just as importantly, what do you think happens to the human beings who are working around this chemical, breathing in its fumes and touching it with their skin? The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they’re dumping into the Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into the ocean to date). But it gets even more interesting when you look at just how widespread this “chemical secrecy” is across Big Business in the USA… and how the U.S. government more often than not conspires with industry to keep these chemicals a secret. It’s time to end chemical trade secrets Armed with the accomplices in the FDA, EPA, FTC and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, powerful corporations have been keeping secrets from us all. It’s not just the toxic chemicals in Corexit, either: Large manufacturers of consumers products — such as Unilever, Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson — routinely use toxic chemical ingredients in their products — ingredients which are usually kept secret from the public. Similarly, virtually every perfume, cologne and fragrance product on the market is made with cancer-causing chemicals that their manufacturers refuse to disclose, claiming their formulas are “trade secrets.” Throughout Big Business in America, the toxic chemicals used in everyday products such as household cleaners, cosmetics and yard care remain a dangerous secret, and the U.S. government actually colludes with industry to keep these chemical ingredients a secret by, for example, refusing to require full disclosure of ingredients for personal care products. The FDA offers us virtually no enforcement in this area, depending almost entirely on companies to declare their own chemicals are safe rather than requiring actual safety testing to be conducted. This is why the following statement is frightening yet true: What BP is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, companies like Proctor and Gamble are doing to the entire population . We are all being mass poisoned by the toxic chemicals in personal care products, foods, medicines, fragrance products and other concoctions created by powerful corporations that use toxic chemicals throughout their product lines… but who refuse to disclose those ingredients in the public. Thanks to the widespread use of secret chemicals in foods, medicines and personal care products, we are awash in synthetic toxic chemicals that have already reached the shores of public health. The rates of cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and infertility that we’re seeing right now are a reflection of the devastating health cost associated with ongoing the ongoing chemical contamination of our population. Even public water fluoridation policies are a kind of “water contamination disaster” where chemicals from an undisclosed source are dumped into the water supply (on purpose, no less!). What’s doubly disturbing about all this is that many of the chemicals used in foods, medicines, household cleaners and personal care products end up in the Gulf of Mexico as well because they get flushed down stream. So now the Gulf isn’t just polluted with crude oil and dispersant chemicals; it’s also heavily contaminated with all the chemical runoff from the products made by large corporations that refuse to disclose the actual chemical ingredients, claiming they’re trade secrets. It’s time to end the chemical secrecy As this Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clearly demonstrates, it’s time to end the chemical secrecy maintained by Big Business. We must demand that all ingredients be fully disclosed for all products so that the curtain of chemical secrecy is lifted once a for all. Neither oil companies nor consumer product companies should be able to hide behind the excuse of “trade secrets” to avoid disclosing the actual chemicals contained in the products they sell. As consumers, we must demand chemical transparency from these companies or refuse to buy their products. Legislatively, we must demand new laws that require full disclosure on all consumer products so that ordinary people can see what’s contained in the products they buy. In a world where one person’s chemical runoff impacts every other person, there is no justification for chemical secrecy. We all have the right to know what we’re putting on (or in) our bodies, and if companies refuse to be honest with us, we should boycott their products and publicly shame them for engaging in deceptive, secretive behavior. Because the truth is that consumer product companies don’t dare want you to know what’s actually found in their products. And that’s because most of their products are made with poison . If the average perfume product listed its chemical ingredients on the label, for example, product sales would plummet as consumers realized just how many of those ingredients are linked to cancer and liver disorders. Big Business wants us all to remain ignorant… blinded to the truth of what poisons they’re slathering on our skin or dripping down our throats. But it’s time to halt this dark era of chemical secrets in our modern world. It’s time to demand transparency, clean up our waterways and stop poisoning ourselves and our planet. Sources for this story include: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/09/09greenwire-ingredients-of-controversial-dispersants-used-42891.html

Los Angeles may require new homes to capture rainwater

(NaturalNews) The City of Los Angeles is considering a law that would require all new homes and large developments, along with some redevelopments, to harvest all rainwater that falls on site. The new law would require developers to capture 100 percent of the rainwater falling onto a site in a three-quarter-inch rain storm. Builders would have to use techniques such as permeable pavement, infiltration swales, curb bump-outs and storage cisterns to infiltrate water into the soil or store it for use. In addition to reducing demand on local aquifers and wastewater treatment plants, the measure would keep 104 million gallons of polluted runoff out of the ocean each year, according to its author Paula Daniels, commissioner of the Board of Public Works. Runoff from pavement and other hardscapes produced by urban sprawl is a major source of water pollution, washing contaminants from yards, buildings and roads into waterways and eventually into the ocean. Builders who fail to reduce their runoff to zero would be required to pay the city $13 per gallon. This money would be used to fund low-impact public developments such as the retrofitting of 24,000 linear feet of parkway in Mar Vista to infiltrate an additional two million gallons of storm water each year. The measure has come under strong opposition from the Building Industry Association, which already fought successfully to get the per-gallon fine lowered from $20 to $13. “We worked out something with the business community that they can release the runoff if they first run the water over a high-efficiency bio-filtration system,” Daniels said. “In other words, they have to clean it first.” The association remains fundamentally opposed to the law, however. The Department of Public Works approved the ordinance in January. To become law it must be adopted first by the City Council’s Energy and Environment committee and its Planning and Land Use Management committee. At that point, it would need to be approved by the city council and mayor. Sources for this story include: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rain-barrels1-2010feb01,0,1154413.story.

BP’s oil gusher in the Gulf: Spin terminology explained (satire)

(NaturalNews Satire) What exactly is a “junk shot?” How about “top kill” or an “undersea plume?” The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is introducing the world to all sorts of fascinating words and phrases from the world of Big Oil. Some of them can be a bit confusing, so as a public service to NaturalNews readers, I’ve published a short dictionary that provides the real meaning behind many of these new terms. “Top Kill” – A technique used to kill everything on the TOP of the ocean using chemical dispersants that cause the dead animal bodies to sink to the BOTTOM of the ocean so they can’t be caught on camera. “Top Hat” – What BP executives will all be wearing at the huge banquet they will soon be holding to celebrate how they pulled off the environmental crime of the century without even a slap on the wrist (thanks to Big Government complicity). “Blowout Preventer” – BP’s public relations person who lies to the press to prevent a P.R. blowout from occurring. A blowout preventer preventer is any member of the press who asks tough questions. “Junk Shot” – An effort to thrust shredded tires, golf balls and other trash into the hole to stop the oil flow. This is the oil industry’s attempt to try to make the Gulf of Mexico look like the streets of Mexico City by filling it with trash. “Chemical Dispersant” – A highly toxic chemical substance being pumped into the Gulf of Mexico by the hundreds of thousands of gallons in an effort to kill so much marine life that the toxicity of the oil itself seems small by comparison. “Undersea Plume” – Rhymes with “doom.” A term used to confuse mainstream news viewers who would be disturbed by the more accurate term, “Undersea VOLCANO of oil.” “Live Feed” – What BP calls a video loop which repeats a few choice frames over and over again and morphs them to create the illusion that it’s actually a live video. The effect is further enhanced by adding a clock that counts off the seconds in real time in the lower right-hand corner. The public is now utterly hypnotized by these video loops, much like house cats watching ceiling fans. “Mud” – A code word for crude oil. This is being repeated on the TV news when newscasters explain that the live video feed showing crude oil bursting out of the ocean floor is mostly just “mud.” They actually mean oil. Mud, after all, does not explode from the ocean floor in a volcanic burst. “According to plan” – A British Petroleum euphemism for “all f**ked up.” As in, “The top kill procedure is going according to plan.” The cleanup is going according to plan, too, it seems. As long as BP is in charge, everything is going according to plan. How dare you suggest they have no clue what they’re doing… “Barrel of oil” – An imaginary unit of oil volume that can be morphed into whatever size BP wishes it to be. At investors’ meetings, the number of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico magically becomes very large, but during oil spills, the number magically shrinks to appear much smaller. “Cleanup workers” – Temporary workers hired by BP to comb the beaches in front of news cameras to make it appear like something useful is happening. BP has now promised to triple the number of active cleanup workers to nine. “You will not be left behind” – A phrase uttered by President Obama, who, immediately after saying it, left everybody behind and took all of BPs beach cleaning crews with him, too. Obama has now returned to his golf game, where he claims to be working on the oil spill problem by aiming his golf balls in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico and hoping they will land in the gaping hole at the bottom of the ocean, thereby making them “junk shot.” Let’s get serious Okay, everything above is just satire, but in reality this Gulf spill is serious business. Although we try to poke fun at the mistakes that were made in causing this to happen, the truth is that this situation is no laughing matter. In the days ahead, I’m going to be posting stories about the seriousness of this environmental catastrophe and what it might mean for the future of our world. Make no mistake: This event has changed the course of our energy future, and it may actually change it in a very positive way in the long term (even though the short term cost of this catastrophe may be outrageously large). Watch for more coverage of this unfolding event right here at NaturalNews.com. And in the mean time, try not to be hoodwinked by BP spin. The truth is, if they had any freaking idea what they were doing, the disaster wouldn’t have happened in the first place (or they would have capped it long before now).

Massive underwater oil cloud may destroy life in Gulf of Mexico

(NaturalNews) Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we’re being told? (http://www.naturalnews.com/028749_Gulf_of_Mexico_oil_spill.html), stated the following: “It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries.” Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR worse than what we were being told . USA Today now reports: Researchers warned Sunday that miles-long underwater plumes of oil from the spill could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-16-gulf-oil-spill_N.htm) That same article also explained: “Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the blown-out well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width.” The Christian Science Monitor also reports now that as much as 3.4 million gallons of oil may be leaking into the Gulf every day! “The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column… Scientists looking at video of the leak, suggest that as many as 3.4 million gallons of oil could be leaking into the Gulf every day , 16 times more than the current 210,000-gallon-a-day estimate, according to the Times.” (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0516/Gulf-oil-spill-real-disaster-might-be-lurking-beneath-the-surface) The New York Times also chimed in on the topic over the weekend with some absolutely shocking (and disturbing) revelations: “Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html) In other words, while the government has been telling us the leak is only 5,000 barrels a day , the true volume could be more like 80,000 barrels a day . Wiping out the Gulf It hardly needs to be stated that 80,000 barrels of oil a day leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could destroy virtually all marine life in the region . Oxygen levels have already fallen by 30 percent in waters near the oil. When water loses its oxygen content, it quickly becomes a so-called “dead zone” because marine species simply can’t live there anymore. (Fish and other aquatic creatures need oxygen to live, obviously.) With this volcano of oil still erupting through the ocean floor, we could be witnessing the mass-murder of virtually all marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. And yet we’re faced with a virtual blackout of truly accurate news on the event. Both the oil industry and the Obama administration are desperately trying to limit the videos, photos and stories about the spill, spinning everything to make it seem like it’s not really much of a problem at all. It’s much like the media coverage of the War in Iraq, where all video footage had to be vetted by the Pentagon before being released to the public. Remember the uproar over the leaked photos of coffins draped in American flags? That’s what the Obama administration no doubt hopes to avoid by suppressing photos of dead dolphins and sea birds in the Gulf of Mexico. The truth, as usual, is being suppressed. It’s just too ugly for the public to see. Of course, the truth has always been suppressed in the oil industry. Even the inspections on this particular oil rig were, well, rigged . It turns out the rig wasn’t even inspected on schedule (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections). It also turns out that the Obama administration actually gave the Deepwater Horizon an award for its history of safety! That was before the whole thing literally blew up in their faces. Corruption in Washington leads to catastrophe The oil industry, you see, is just like every other industry that’s regulated by the federal government: It has a cozy relationship with regulators. It’s the same story with Big Pharma and the FDA, or the meat industry and the USDA. Wall Street and the SEC. Every industry that’s regulated eventually turns the tables on its regulators and ends up rewriting the rules for its own benefit. The oil industry has been able to get away with so many exemptions and loopholes that the regulatory environment is now lenient at best. The Deepwater Horizon, for example, was given all sorts of exemptions to engage in risky drilling operations without following proper safety procedures. And who granted it these exemptions? The U.S. federal government, of course! So now the U.S. government is just as guilty as the oil industry in this mass-murder of life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the government that allowed the series of events that led to catastrophe in the first place. And now, this catastrophe could lead to a near-total wipeout of marine life throughout the Gulf (and possibly beyond). In a worst-case scenario, this could destroy some percentage of life in oceans all around the world. It could be the one final wound to Mother Earth who bleeds her black blood into the oceans for ten thousand years, destroying life as we know it on this planet. All for profit, of course. Let nothing stand in the way of another billion dollars in oil company profits! (Regulators? Bah!) Collusion between government and industry always leads to disaster I hope BP can find a way to suction some of that oil out of the ocean. If they can manage such a solution, they should then turn around and dump the entire slick across the landscape of Washington D.C. to coat all the bureaucrats in the black slimy shame they no doubt deserve. This isn’t about some random accident, you see: It’s about a failure of federal regulators to enforce safe drilling practices . The fishing industries in and around the Gulf of Mexico could be devastated for decades . The diversity of life in the marine ecosystems there may soon find itself on the verge of collapse. And still there is no real solution for stopping the volcano of oil that continues to gush out of this gaping wound in the Earth herself. I can only wonder what kind of hare-brained ideas these oil men are coming up with now to stop the flow. A nuke bomb expert has reportedly been sent to the area by the Obama administration as part of some sort of “dream team” of super smart people to find a solution. But it begs the question: If we were so smart, why are we still running the world on fossil fuels in the first place? There’s enough sunlight energy striking the deserts of Arizona to power the entire nation indefinitely! Free energy technology continues to be suppressed in large part by oil company interests (and the arrogant scientific community), and renewable energy technology has received virtually no government support whatsoever. If we were really smart, we wouldn’t be drilling holes in the ocean floor and hoping we can cope with whatever comes gushing out. We’d be installing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations across the deserts of America or building more wind power generators. We’ve be investing in electric cars and alternative fuels rather than burning up our future with fossil fuels. The smartest thing we could do right now — after capping the volcano of oil, of course — would be to make a commitment to end our world’s dependence on fossils fuels forever . But that goes against the financial interests of the oil companies who all want to keep us trapped in their system of fossil fuel dependence no matter what the cost to the environment. And so we plug along, handcuffed to an outdated fuel source and still running our ridiculously historical internal combustion engines which should have been phased out decades ago and replaced with electric motors. Humans are slow learners, it turns out. Our modern civilization isn’t really that “modern,” and it only seems to learn from catastrophe rather than intelligent planning. The question remains: How much more damage can our planet handle from Man’s arrogant pollution? At what point does all the chemical contamination, fertilizer runoff, carbon emissions and runaway oil pollution of the ocean add up to a global extinction event? We’re playing a global game of Russian Roulette right now with the future of human civilization… and the oil companies just can’t stop pulling the trigger. There’s little question where we’re all going to end up if we don’t change our ways and find a cleaner way to power our infantile civilization.

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